I'm sitting at my home office desk, looking at my computer, but honestly, my mind is somewhere else. I'm thinking about my friends.
You know, real friendship isn’t something you plan. It just happens over time. It’s built from all the small moments—the inside jokes nobody else gets, knowing you can call them when you’re in a jam, and just being there for each other when life gets messy.
A true friend has seen you at your best and your worst, and decides to stick around anyway. You trust them with your worries and your dreams. You know each other’s stories. It’s a comfortable, steady thing. You know you can count on them, and they know they can count on you.
Then an email pops up on my screen. It’s from a company, and the subject line is something like, “Hey pal, we’ve missed you!”
It always makes me shake my head a little. I’ve worked in offices long enough to know the game. Marketers want their brand to feel like your friend, so you’ll be loyal to them. But it’s a shortcut, and it feels hollow.
Friendship is earned. You can’t just create it with a clever ad campaign. A company can’t really be there for you when you get bad news. It can’t celebrate with you when something great happens. It’s not real.
When you get right down to it, it’s all about trust. And trust is built on one simple thing: consistency. It’s about showing up, again and again. It’s about keeping your word, your promises.
That’s true for a person, and it’s true for a business. The rest is just noise.
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